Strategic Plan of Shangri-La Hotel Research Paper - 2525 Words 3.3.1Shangri-La Care 1: Shangri-La Hospitality from Caring People9 3.3.2Shangri-La Care 2: Delighting Customers9 3.3.3Shangri-La Care 3: Recover to Gain Loyalty9 3.3.4Shangri-La Care 4: Take Ownership10 4.0SWOT chart for the Shangri-La Hotel11 5.0Conclusion14 6.0Reference15 1.0 Introduction Our group have chosen Shangri La as our topic of discussion for our report writing. Shangri La is a cooperation that has a lot of hotels and resorts in the whole wide world. The name of ‘Shangri La’ was actually from a novel published in 1933 named, ‘Lost Horizon’ written by James Hilton. In present days, the name ‘Shangri La’ has become famous in the worldwide. In 1971, Shangri La has its own deluxe hotel in Singapore.

After that, Shangri La had grew into a huge cooperation which own 72 hotels and resorts in different countries, such as, Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East, Europe and yet Shangri La is planning to develop more hotels in different countries. Besides that, Shangri La has two Asia’s most prestigious recreational clubs, that is, the Aberdeen Marina Club in Hong Kong, and the Xili Golf and Country Club in Shenzhen. Furthermore, Shangri La’s always follow Asian Hospitality as their unique hospitality to treat their customer. In order to compete with other hotels and resorts, Shangri La had emphasized on hospitality towards their customer. The main thing that makes Shangri La being successful and being different from the other hotels and resorts is offering high level of Asian standards of hospitality and caring for people. Therefore, Shangri La hotels and resorts will care for each and every customer. They will make sure that every customer will satisfied with their services. Shangri La search for trendsetters and professionals to serve their customer and to achieve the goal, that is, to make sure every customer has great experience once they stay in the hotels and resorts. Strategic planning is critical to business success.

Different from classic business planning, the strategic variety involves vision, mission and outside-of-the-box thinking. Strategic planning describes where you want your company to go, not necessarily how you're going to get there. However, like all other "travel plans," without knowing where you want to go, creating details on how to arrive are meaningless. Strategic planning defines the "where" that your company is heading. In order for a business to be successful, there needs to be a roadmap for success. A strategic plan helps to provide direction and focus for all employees. It points to specific results that are to be achieved and establishes a course of action for achieving them. A strategic plan also helps the various work units within an organization to align themselves with common goals. Building a strategic plan is not difficult. It will take some thought and some feedback from customers and others, but businesses should be routinely garnering feedback from appropriate constituent groups on an on-going basis. The process of developing a strategic plan should be rewarding for all involved and usually helps develop stronger communications between members of the planning team. Once developed, the key to making the plan work is a commitment to seeing it through and sound implementation. Many businesses have developed strategic plans only to put them on a shelf to gather dust.

Managers need a well-developed strategic plan in order to effectively establish expectations for their employees. Without a plan, expectations are developed in a void and there is little or no alignment with common goals. A good strategic plan looks out 2 to 5 years and describes clearly how the business will grow and prosper over that... Shangri-La Hotel Essay ...MGT103 Case Study Report The Shangri-la Hotel Francesca Donovan Identify any Loyalty Programs and evaluate the effectiveness of it? In the past the hospitality industry offered loyalty programs, usually formed with an alliance such as an airline. Due to the fact airlines have segregated themselves and formed their own frequent flier points, the hotel industry has been forced to produce programs for themselves. Loyalty programs... 1022 Words | 3 Pages Shangri-La Hotel Stp Essay ...situation and history of a international hotel from China, Shangri-la hotel, which is one of the best and luxury hotel in Asia. Merely mention how the whole hotel market environment influence Shangri-la hotel. How do they compete with their major competitors? How do they segment their market and what is their target market how do they form their strategies by these...

663 Words | 3 Pages Essay about Shangri-La Hotel ...Overview “The Shangri-la" is the brand of limited-company Shangri-la (Asia) Co., LTD in Hong Kong, this company belongs to the famous Chinese businessman--"The candy king" Robert Kuok ‘s Kuok Group in Malaysia. The story of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts began in 1971 when a deluxe hotel was founded in the city of Singapore. Today, Hong Kong-based... 1692 Words | 6 Pages Shangri La Hotels Essay ...Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. Hilton describes Shangri-La as a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia — a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside... 1110 Words | 4 Pages Shangri La Hotel Essay ...Shangri-La's Net Profit Rises 54% Kate O'Keeffe. Wall Street Journal (Online).

New York, N.Y.: Mar 17, 2010. Abstract (Summary) HONG KONG--Luxury hotel operator Shangri-La Asia Ltd. said Wednesday its 2009 net profit rose 54%, lifted by higher property prices, though its core hotels business suffered from a sharp drop in demand due to the global financial crisis. » Jump to indexing (document details) Full... 2282 Words | 7 Pages Strategic Plan Essay ...﻿Strategic Plan: Riordan Manufacturing Inc. What role should ethical and social responsibility considerations have in Riordan’s strategic management plan? Ethical and social responsibility should be strongly considered in Riordan’s strategic management plan. Companies that support strategic corporate social responsibility focus on factors such as identifying opportunities and threats facing... 2004 Words | 8 Pages Shangri La Essay ...INDRODUCTION In this project I intend to analyze the complex case of Shangri-La hotel chain a company mainly situated in the Asia pacific but also in some regions of Europe, North America and Australia. I will explain its business strategy making an external analysis about the macro environment, the industry environment and the competitors.

I will then try to find some ways to improve the company’s financial and strategic performance... 2482 Words | 8 Pages Shangri-La Essay ...Case 24Shangri-La Hotels 1. The key element of strategy implemented by Shangri-La Hotel in gaining competitive advantage over its rivals is by offering services that are superior value worth paying more for. Shangri-la uses its signature standard of “Shangri-La Hospitality” in achieving an edge or competitive advantage over rivals in attracting buyers and coping... 2831 Words | 8 Pages Top 10 Fantasy Worlds In Literature - Listverse Top 10 Fantasy Worlds In Literature Listverse Staff July 30, 2008 Throughout the history of English literature, hundreds of writers have created fantastic worlds for their plots and characters to play out in. This is sometimes done for reasons of satire (under oppressive governments) or just for outright pleasure. This is a selection of the ten best fictional lands in English literature. 10 Dreamlands H. P. Lovecraft The Dreamlands is a fictional location in the Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft. It is also the setting for a number of pastiches written by other authors.

The Dreamlands is a vast, alternate dimension that can be entered through dreams, similar to astral projection or lucid dreaming. Experienced dreamers are among the most powerful inhabitants of the Dreamlands and may become its permanent residents after their physical deaths. The Dreamlands can be entered in other ways, including physically. This usually requires passing through very dangerous areas of both the waking world and the Dreamlands. Consequently, real death becomes a risk. However, the visitor does receive the prolonged lifespan of a native of the Dreamlands, so the traveler’s time there is no longer limited to the duration of a night’s sleep on earth. Though the term Dreamlands typically refers to the dimension accessible by human dreamers, other inhabited planets may have their own dreamlands. Reaching these other realms from the terrestrial Dreamlands is possible but difficult. Time flows at a different rate in the Dreamlands — each hour on earth represents a week or more there. Consequently, a traveller can spend months in the Dreamlands during a single night’s sleep on earth. Fortunately for dreamers, inhabitants of the Dreamlands are either long-lived or immortal, provided they avoid injury or disease.

[ Source ] 9 Pellucidar Edgar Rice Burroughs Pellucidar is a fictional Hollow Earth milieu invented by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs for a series of action adventure stories. In a notable crossover event between Burroughs’ series, there is a Tarzan story in which the Ape Man finds his way into Pellucidar. The stories initially involve the adventures of mining heir David Innes and his inventor friend Abner Perry after they use an “iron mole” to burrow 500 miles into the earth’s crust. Later protagonists include indigenous cave man Tanar and additional visitors from the surface world, most notably Tarzan. Primitive people and prehistoric creatures, notably dinosaurs, populate Pellucidar. The region in which Innes and Perry initially find themselves is ruled by the cities of the Mahars, intelligent flying reptiles resembling pterosaurs with dangerous psychic powers, which keep the local tribelets of Stone Age human beings in subjugation. Innes and Perry eventually unite the tribes to overthrow the Mahars’ domain and establish a human “Empire of Pellucidar” in its place. While the Mahars are the dominant species in the Pellucidar novels, they seem confined to their handful of cities.

Before their overthrow they use the Sagoths, a race of gorilla-men who speak the same language as Tarzan’s apes, to enforce their rule over the human tribes within the area which they rule. [ Source ] 8 Neverland J. M. Barrie Neverland (also called Never-Never-Land, Never Land and other variations) is the fictional island and dream world featured in the play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up by Scottish writer J. M. Barrie, his subsequent novel Peter and Wendy, and later works by others. While sojourning in Neverland, people may cease to age; therefore, Neverland is often seen as a metaphor for eternal childhood (and childishness), immortality, and escapism. The 1911 novel explains that Neverlands are found in the minds of children, and although they are “always more or less an island”, and they have a family resemblance, they are not the same from one child to the next. For example, John Darling’s “had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it” while his little brother Michael’s “had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it”.

In the world of Neverland, they say either the Crocodile’s clock or the suns and moons tell that time. It is mentioned in the novel Peter Pan that there are many more suns and moons there than in our world. According to Peter Pan in Scarlet, Neverland resides in a sea known as the Sea of One Thousand Islands. In the book, Peter explores some of this sea, passing by islands of various sizes. The most amazing thing encountered on this adventure is Lodestone Rock: a magnetic rock that destroys the Jolly Peter and the SS Starkey along with it. [ Source ] 7 Shangri-La James Hilton Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, “Shangri-La” is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan.

The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. There are a number of modern Shangri-La pseudo-legends that have developed since 1933 in the wake of the novel and the film made from it. The Nazis had an enthusiasm for Shangri-La, where they hoped to find an ancient master race, similar to the Nordic race, unspoiled by Buddhism. They sent one expedition to Tibet, led by Ernst Schäfer in 1938. Shangri-la is often used in a similar context to which “Garden of Eden” might be used, to represent a perfect paradise that exists hidden from modern man. It can sometimes be used as an analogy for a life-long quest or something elusive that is much sought. [ Source ] 6 Narnia C. S. Lewis Narnia is a fantasy world created by C. S. Lewis as the primary location for his series of seven fantasy novels for children, The Chronicles of Narnia.

The world is so called after the country of Narnia, in which much of the action of the Chronicles takes place. In Narnia, some animals can talk, mythical beasts abound, and magic is common. The series tracks the story of Narnia when humans, usually children, enter the Narnian world from ‘our world’, or Earth. According to the mythology of the series, Narnia was created by the great lion, Aslan, and is filled with talking animals and mythical creatures. C. S. Lewis may have taken the name from the Italian town of Narni, whose Latin name was in fact, Narnia. The landscape of Lewis’ native Northern Ireland played a large part in the creation of the Narnian landscape. In his essay On Stories, Lewis wrote “I have seen landscapes, notably in the Mourne Mountains and southwards which under a particular light made me feel that at any moment a giant might raise his head over the next ridge”. The world of Narnia is a flat world in a geocentric universe. Its sky is a dome that mortal creatures cannot penetrate. Narnia’s stars are burning humanoid beings.

Its constellations are the result of a mystical dance upon the sky, performed by the stars to announce the works and comings of Aslan, Narnia’s creator. The stars also arrange themselves to allow seers to foretell certain future events. [ Source ] 5 Utopia St Thomas More Utopia is a name for an ideal society, taken from the title of a book written in 1516 by St Thomas More describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean, possessing a seemingly perfect socio-politico-legal system. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempted to create an ideal society, and fictional societies portrayed in literature. “Utopia” is sometimes used pejoratively, in reference to an unrealistic ideal that is impossible to achieve, and has spawned other concepts, most prominently dystopia. The word comes from Greek: ??, “not”, and ?????, “place”, indicating that More was utilizing the concept as allegory and did not consider such an ideal place to be realistically possible. It is worth noting that the homophone Eutopia, derived from the Greek ??, “good” or “well”, and ?????, “place”, signifies a double meaning that was almost certainly intended.

Despite this, most modern usage of the term “Utopia” incorrectly assumes the latter meaning, that of a place of perfection rather than nonexistence. [ Source ] 4 Gulliver’s World Jonathan Swift Lilliput and Blefuscu are two fictional island nations that appear in the 1726 novel Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Both are portrayed as being in the South Indian Ocean and are inhabited by tiny people who are “not six inches high”. A channel separates the two eight hundred yards wide. The tiny people of Lilliput and Blefuscu contrast with the giants of Brobdingnag whom Gulliver also met. In the novel, Gulliver washes up on the shore of Lilliput and is ‘captured’ by the inhabitants while asleep. He discovers that Lilliput and Blefuscu are permanently at war because of differences over the correct way to eat a boiled egg – from the rounded end according to the Blefuscudians, or from the sharp end according to the Lilliputians.

Additionally, Gulliver’s Travels also includes the land of Brobdingnag; the people of Brobdingnag are described as giants who are as tall as a church steeple and whose stride is ten yards. All of the other animals and plants, and even natural features such as rivers and even hail, are in proportion. The rats are the size of large dogs and the flies are the size of birds, for example. [ Source ] 3 The Land of Oz L. Frank Baum Oz is, in the first book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, distinguished from Dorothy’s native Kansas by not being civilized; this explains why Kansas does not have witches and wizards, while Oz does. In the third book, Ozma of Oz, Oz is described as a “fairy country”, new terminology that remained to explain its wonders.

Oz is roughly rectangular in shape, and divided along the diagonals into four countries: Munchkin Country (but commonly referred to as ‘Munchkinland’ in adaptations) in the East, Winkie Country (called ‘The Vinkus’ in Gregory Maguire’s Wicked and its sequel Son of a Witch) in the West, (sometimes West and East are reversed on maps of Oz, see West and East below) Gillikin Country in the North, and Quadling Country in the South. In the center of Oz, where the diagonals cross, is the fabled Emerald City, capital of the land of Oz and seat to the monarch of Oz, Princess Ozma. Oz is completely surrounded on all four sides by a desert, which insulates the citizens of Oz from discovery and invasion. In the first two books, this is merely a desert, with only its extent to make it dangerous to the traveler. [ Source ] 2 Alice’s Worlds Lewis Carroll Wonderland (from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) is a strange and seemingly crazy world that is entered by dropping into a rabbit hole. Animals act as normal people. Physical size as well as time is relative.

However, the story also partly takes place in our ‘real’ world, where Alice starts by sitting next to her sister, and wakes up in it. In the story, Wonderland is a dream world. However, thematically, Wonderland is not really another world. It is in fact our own world, only seen through the eyes of a child. The Looking Glass world resembles Wonderland. Strange creatures also inhabit it and weird things keep happening. This world can be entered by passing through the mirror above the chimney in Alice’s house. Therefore, everything in Wonderland is reversed; books are in mirror writing and when you want to go to a certain place, you have to walk in the opposite direction. The land is laid out like a huge chessboard, with little brooks to mark the edges of the squares. The rules of chess apply when the inhabitants try to move from one square to another. The creatures in Looking Glass world seem to be a little less crazy than the creatures in Wonderland. In the end, Looking Glass world turns out to be a dream world as well, and can also be seen as a metaphor for our own adult world. 1 Middle-Earth J. R. R.

Tolkien Middle-earth refers to the fictional lands where most of the stories of author J. R. R. Tolkien take place. Tolkien’s stories chronicle the struggle to control the world (called Arda) and the continent of Middle-earth, between the angelic Valar, the Elves and their allies among Men; and the demonic Melkor or Morgoth (a Vala fallen into evil) and his minions, mostly Orcs, Dragons and enslaved men. Tolkien prepared several maps of Middle-earth and the regions of Middle-earth in which his stories took place. Some were published in his lifetime, though some of the earliest maps were not published until after his death. The main maps were those published in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Tolkien said that his Middle-earth is located on our Earth, but in a fictional period in the past, estimating the end of the Third Age to about 6,000 years before his own time. He was later to refute this notion, and state that Middle-earth was not at a physically distant time, but rather “at a different stage of imagination”.

[ Source ] Notable Omission: Discworld This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from the Wikipedia articles cited above. Contributors: Beranabus, JFrater Shangri-la China For all photos of the Shangri-la area – click here! Before coming to Southwest China, my sister and I were out one night with some of her Singapore friends and they wanted to know where we were going on our pending trip to Yunnan. We rattled off a few places including Shangri-la. There was an immediate ooooohh around the room as someone started talking about how lovely Shangri-la was â wonderful food, great service, nice spa, comfortable beds and the list went on. We were a bit confused by this at first and then it hit usâ¦âNo, we arenât going to the hotel, we are going to the town of Shangri-la!â Photo: Looking at the Tibetan Monastery in the valley – supposedly Shangri-la Shangri-laâs association with utopia began when James Hilton described a fictional town in his novel Lost Horizon.

In the book, Shangri-la is a mystical, harmonious valley, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. It has since become synonymous with any earthly paradise (hence the 5 star hotel chain) a mythical Himalayan utopia â a land of permanently happy people isolated from the outside world. One would think that since the book was fiction and presumably Shangri-la was also fictional, that this would be the end of the storyâ¦but not quite. As human beings, I think we have to grasp on to the idea that a perfect place exists â therefore many real places try to claim that they are the ârealâ Shangri-la and capitalize on tourism and capitalismâ¦the very thing that would kill a true utopiaâ¦but I digress. The Chinese government also wanted to get in on this potential tourist money maker and officially renamed Zhongdian Country in northwestern Yunnan to Shangri-la County. We traveled by car into the county they call Shangi-la. We climbed high into the mountains and popped out in this lush, yet cold, valley dotted with villages and fields of yaks.

This was my first yak sighting â signaling that I was entering the hearty Himalayan area. One where the bovine needed to grow more hair to survive the harsh weather. A yak is not a buffalo or a cowâ¦it canât even moo, it grunts instead â living in the harsh mountain conditions staying warm with their coats of long hair. The further you go into the cold region, the longer hair they have â adapting to their surroundings. Yaks are the main source of meat for Tibetans and this part of China â as well as a source of milk. Yes â I did eat yak meat as well as have the famous yak milk tea that is served in this region. Yak milk tea is a main staple of the Tibetan diet made of yak butter, black tea, and salt. I can safely say that the yak tastes like beef and the yak milk tea tastes like melted butterâ¦.and yak intestine tastes like a rubber hose. We came across a heard of yak along the side of the road and I asked for our driver to stop so I could take some photos before the sun set.

I watched the yak herders round up the yaks from the field (I have no idea how they figured out which ones were theirs), and walk them across the road stopping a bus in itâs track. The yaks stood in tall fields of golden grass reminding me of Kansas or somewhere in the Midwest of the US. Photo: Giant prayer wheel at dusk in Shangri-la As we entered the town of Shangri-la â I have to admit, it didnât seem like anything special or any more different that the other Yunnan towns we had stayed in. Granted, there were yaks roaming the streets as if they were cows in India, and it was quite a bit colder â but other than that â it was the same tourist store shit. After eating our yak hot pot dinner and having a few beers to wash it down â we walked around the town square to watch the locals kick up their heels and dance the night away. I wasnât necessarily expecting to see a bunch of Tibetans in leisure suits âstayin aliveâ, but one could hope.

Instead it was circles of Tibetan and some mixed in tourists dancing around the square in a âline danceâ style. The movement of the hands and arms were much more complex and there was a bunch of hopping involved. Since I was high on yakâ¦I decided to try and join themâ¦plus the alternative was to stand around and freeze â so movement sounded like the best option. I tried to pick an older local lady who looked graceful to follow along and mimic. All I can say is THANK GOD no one had a video camera in our group! I was pretty pathetic and 4 steps behind the group most times â but I was getting warmer and warmerâ¦thanks to the embarrassment of eyes on me laughing! We went back to our chilly little hotel and tried to stay warm in a common area with a pot of coal for heat. We sat around the table and played cards, sipping tea before we went to our cold rooms. We started off very early the next morning to see the Tibetan Buddhist Monastery named Songzanlin. This was the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yunnan and one of the most famous in the region.

The monastery was constructed in 1679 and looks like a Kasbah â with houses stacked on top of each other on a hillside. Approximately 700 monks live in those houses in this monastery community. The halls were colorful and ornate â and the Buddha statues were enormous! We turned the prayer wheels, and went to the roof to look around at the view. When we came back down in the hall there were some monks that had arrived to chantâ¦if you can call it that. The monks chant was guttural â loud and amplified grunts rang out through the hallsâ¦and a bit shocking at first. I looked at Rebekah and said that the monk could easily be signed to a record label to produce electronica music! I could easily see a DJ pick up great tracks from this guy! I get the feeling that there was more to see in this Shangri-laâ¦but we ran out of time and needed to be moving along to higher and even colder ground. It was a perfectly nice town, full of ethnicities, culture, and old world charm.

But Shangri-laâ¦â¦..weeelllllâ¦Iâm not so sure about that. Personally, Iâve been to many âShangri-laâsâ during my travels â for me itâs a state of mind â finding the untouched, and simple lives, the co-existence of many religions and cultures â feeling remote. Iâm happy to say that you can find little pockets of that all over the world! Photo: My travel group trying to stay warm playing cards – scarfs and beer! Visit Shangri-La in a tailor-made tour | Evaneos Reviews of Shangri-La by travellers Clara Favini Seasoned Traveller 97 written opinions Shangri La, formerly called Zhongdian, is a small town in the north of Yunnan. Perched on a plateau at 3,200m high, it's close to the autonomous region of Tibet. My review It has a 'once upon a time, in a land far far away' ambiance... a 'world's end', so to speak. Shangri La is a must-see.

Its old town and the Songzanlin Monastery, a stunning site, home to 600 plus monks, are worth every cent. Its rolling countryside, complete with yaks and hidden lakes, is ideal for hikes and walks. Did you know? 'Shangri La' was the name given to the mystical, harmonious valley described by James Hilton in his 1933 novel, Lost Horizon. In 2001, when numerous Chinese towns began to claim they were Hilton's inspiration, the government decreed that this legendary place was none other than Zhongdian, subsequently re-baptised as Shangri La. A great marketing coup for the town, which saw its tourist trade rocket!

© Blaze destroys ancient Tibetan town dubbed 'Shangri-La' - Telegraph Tibet Blaze destroys ancient Tibetan town dubbed 'Shangri-La' Inferno rips through 1,300-year-old Tibetan community, which had been pin-pointed as the location of the mythical Shangri-La in James Hilton's novel The Lost Horizon By Malcolm Moore, Beijing 12:08PM GMT 11 Jan 2014 A ten-hour inferno has destroyed the ancient Tibetan town which, according to the Chinese government, was the earthly incarnation of the lost paradise of Shangri-la. The blaze, which began in the early hours of Saturday morning, swept through the narrow alleys of Duzekong, a 1,300-year-old village high up in the mountains of Tibet which was once a stop on the southern Silk Road. Thousands of firefighters, soldiers and police were mobilised to fight the blaze, but were unable to save hundreds of the traditional wooden buildings that helped create a boom in tourism since 2001, when China officially renamed Duzekong - and the modern Chinese town that has sprung up around it - as Shangri-la.

“The fire was huge, the wind was blowing hard and the air was dry,” said He Yu, one of the town’s 3,000 or so residents, to the Associated Press. “It kept burning and the firefighters were there but there was little they could do because they could not get their fire engines into the narrow streets.” Investigators said the fire began at the Ruyi Inn, and that it was unlikely to be arson. One tourist who visited in 2012 said that electrical wires in the old town were a chaotic tangle and that a shop had caught fire during her visit, causing a mini-blackout. Related Articles Monlam Prayer Festival 17 Mar 2015 Officials also said there had been no casualties. While the area is often swamped with tourists during the Spring and Summer, the temperature on Saturday dipped to -8C. Shangri-la was coined by the novelist James Hilton in his 1933 book Lost Horizon to describe a mystical valley in the western end of the Kunlun mountains, guided by monks who live for hundreds of years. The lost paradise has a “dream-like texture” where the air has a “deep anaesthetising tranquility”, wrote Mr Hilton.

Over the years, there have been several competing claims to be the real Shangri-la. Officials in the Yunnanese town of Lijiang claimed that Hilton had been inspired by a series of photographs of their town by Joseph Rock, an American botanist. In 1999, a team of American explorers found a gorge hidden deep in the Himalayas, which they claimed as Shangri-la and named as the Hidden Falls of the Tsangpo. In the same year, another team announced that the Muli monastery in southern Sichuan was the lost paradise. Sang-la, in the valley of the same name near the border between India and Tibet also has a claim. Two years later, Tibet started cooperating with its neighbouring provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan to “optimise all Shangri-la tourism resources”, in short an attempt to coordinate their efforts to prevent an unseemly scramble of competing claims. In the same year, Zhongdian county, where Duzekong sits, became the first place in China to be officially renamed. The move created an enormously successful tourism industry.

Some 25 travel agents in Shangri-la now employ nearly 2,500 guides and over 300 private hotels have sprung up. Roughly four hours by bus from Lijiang, there is now a 78ft-tall Buddhist prayer wheel, as well as art galleries, restaurants selling yak burgers and a “reggae” cafe. Vilcabamba Homes - Hacienda San Joaquin Vilcabamba Glimpse #49 Shangri-La? Visitors to Hacienda San Joaquin invariably say that our web site photos of the ranch do not do it justice. Many who come here describe the ranch and its setting as idyllic, paradise, a refuge…Shangri-La. What exactly is “Shangri-La?” Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, Shangri-La is a mystical, harmonious valley. The 1937 film, “Lost Horizon,” tells the story of a group of travelers who find a utopian society in the Himalaya Mountains.

Fleeing unrest in China, a small group of airplane passengers is hijacked by the pilot. The plane eventually runs out of fuel and crashes deep in the Himalayas, killing the abductor. The group is rescued and taken to Shangri-La, an idyllic valley sheltered from the cold. The contented inhabitants are enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan. Is Vilcabamba and Hacienda San Joaquin a kind of Shangri-La? The short answer: it’s probably as close as it gets. For the long answer, have a look at previous Glimpses like, "Imagine." The photos: Arunachal Tourism “The last of the great Shangri-La.." . ‘Shangri-La is a mystical, harmonious valley’ or so goes the description in James Hilton’s 1993 novel, Lost Horizon.

Hilton went on to describe a Garden of Eden on Earth: a land of milk and honey in a hidden Himalaya valley, where nobody grew old or ugly. Over the years, there’s been no shortage of contenders for the title of ‘Lost Shangri-La’ but now there’s a new kid on the block: Arunachal Pradesh”. The thunderous Himalayan peaks so little known that few have been named, let alone climbed, plus jungles teeming with life forms that scientists are yet to catalogue, delicately tattooed and pierced tribal peoples living in long houses in the forest, magnificent Buddhist Temples and a severe dose of near limitless adventure. Lonely planet’s top 4 regions in the world. Arunachal Pradesh, a veritable treasure house of nature, tucked away in the north eastern tip of India, invites you to relax in its picturesque hills and vales encircled on three sides by Bhutan, China and Myanmar. Come to Arunachal Pradesh to revel in nature in its full splendour. Enjoy the salubrious climate and meet its simple and hospitable people.

Snowy mist, famous monasteries, unexplored passes and tranquil lakes come together to form some of the prettiest mountain spots in Arunachal Pradesh. For a tourist the options are varied, each more tempting than the other. Apart of the eastern Himalayan range and situated in the north eastern tip of India bounded by Myanmar on its east, Bhutan on the west, China on the north and north east, Arunachal Pradesh is: Things you can do in Arunachal: » The largest state in the north east that covers an area 83,743 sq.km with evergreen forests covering more than 82 percent of the state. » Average rainfall of above 3000 mm per year and climate variation from sub-tropical in the south to Alpine in the north. » Inhabited by 26 major tribes and a number of sub-tribes. » Thinnest population density in the country with only 17 percent per sq. Km. » The Shangri-Las 48th Anniversary of No. 1 Hit 'Leader of the Pack' - Biography.com Celebrity The Shangri-Las 48th Anniversary of No.

1 Hit 'Leader of the Pack' My friends from high school can attest that I know all the words to “Leader of the Pack,” the Shangri-Las second hit and perhaps their most famous song—melodramatic lyrics and elaborate sound effects and all. By the time I was a teenager... Avatar: Social count: 248 My friends from high school can attest that I know all the words to “Leader of the Pack,” the Shangri-Las second hit and perhaps their most famous song—melodramatic lyrics and elaborate sound effects and all. By the time I was a teenager... 248 0 My friends from high school can attest that I know all the words to “Leader of the Pack,” the Shangri-Las second hit and perhaps their most famous song—melodramatic lyrics and elaborate sound effects and all. By the time I was a teenager, they were hopelessly outdated and campy, but to me, they were still a lot of fun. If you think “Teen Death” music is out of style, take a look at Lana Del Ray’s “Born to Die” video and think again. Bad boys and deadly smash-ups remain important themes in pop music.

To celebrate the 48th anniversary of "Leader of the Pack" hitting the top of the charts, here are some details about the Shangri-Las, one of the great Girl Groups of the 1960s. REALLY young! Betty Weiss and her younger sister Mary (Born 1946 and 1948 respectively) went to Andrew Jackson High School in Queens with the Ganser twins, Mary Ann and Margie (1948.) They loved rock 'n' roll, and practiced harmonies together after school. The four girls ranged in age from 15 to 17 when they formed the Shangri-Las under the direction of George “Shadow” Morton in 1963. Morton was an aspiring young song writer/producer with more guts than resume, and their first hit “Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)” catapulted his career to the famous Brill Building and the girls into the national spotlight. Experienced hit-writer Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry from Red Bird Music signed the group up for a five-year exclusive deal, but given the girls’ age, their parents had to sign the contract. What’s in a name?

“Shangri-La” is the name of a mystical harmonious valley in Tibet, described in James Hilton’s bestselling 1933 novel, Lost Horizon. The book, one of FDR’s favorites, was not the girls’ inspiration, nor was the fairly cheesy Frank Capra film from 1937. It was the name of their local Chinese restaurant in Queens. Shangri-La has a bit of exotic orientalism that is an understandable choice for four young girls from a New York City outer borough who wanted to be sophisticated and a little edgy. In fact, they were considered the bad girls of rock ‘n’ roll. 'Shocking' Lyrics. The words to their biggest hit, "Leader of the Pack," were considered so shocking that some radio stations refused to play the song initially. With today’s jaundiced eye, it’s hard to fathom the outrage. Is it that the girl met the misunderstood bad boy at a candy store? Or that her parents didn’t approve? Even Ellie Greenwich thought the song was too much. Motorcycle guys are just too dangerous, I guess, especially if they die in a reckless crash after being dumped by a 16 year old. Terrific sound effects.

Phil Spector is famous for his “wall-of–sound” productions, but Shadow Morton’s sound effects in “Leader of the Pack” amazed the radio-listening audience—and the local police. Unable to replicate the sound of a loud motorcycle revving, he brought a motorcycle into the studio and laid down a very authentic effects track. The process proved so noisy that neighbors complained, and a policeman issued him a ticket for disturbing the peace. Other songs by the Shangri-Las include dramatic sound effects as well. Sang with the Best. The Shangri-Las performed with the Beatles in 1964, and the following year toured with the Zombies and Dusty Springfield , which built their significant Japanese and British fan base. Betty Weiss did not tour for the first two years, so most people thought the girls sang as a trio. By 1967, when Mary Ann Ganser left the group, their stardom had faded, and the music world was changing with new acts like Janis Joplin and the Mamas and the Papas shining on stage. The girls disbanded in 1968, reportedly bitter that, while the record companies had sold millions of their recordings, they were paid very little.

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Question: In which novel did James Hilton describe the 'mystical, harmonious valley' of Shangri-La?
Answer: LOST HORIZON